


The Thought™ (or: Charlie Williams Is A Genius And Everyone Can Thank Him Later: A Tale)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Family Bonding, Fluff, Future Fic, Humor, M/M, eric isn't in this but my charlie definitely spent a lot of time with his cousin growing up, in a way? - Freeform, steve co-parents danny's kids and that's canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28492956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “Hi little one,” Grace says when she accepts the call. “How are things?”“Good,” he says hastily, and he opens his mouth to ask how she and Will and their super cute new kitten are because he knows that’s polite and he doescare(especially about the kitten), but it doesn’t really work. “Is dad gay for Uncle Steve?”Or: It’s 2028, Charlie is sixteen, and one ordinary afternoon he has a really great idea about Steve and Danny’s relationship that nobody has ever had before, in the history of ever.
Relationships: Steve McGarrett & Danny "Danno" Williams & Charles "Charlie" Williams Edwards, Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 28
Kudos: 320





	The Thought™ (or: Charlie Williams Is A Genius And Everyone Can Thank Him Later: A Tale)

**Author's Note:**

> It’s a new year! Time for some old fic that’s about the future! We’re going every direction at once today.

It’s an ordinary Saturday afternoon when Charlie has The Thought (henceforth capitalized to show its dramatic importance). One moment, he’s watching Danno and Uncle Steve bicker energetically about what to order in for dinner even though that’s still hours away, and the next, he catches himself hoping that he and his future girlfriend will still have as much fun together after they’ve known each other for two decades.

_Huh_ , he thinks, and that’s about it for The Thought, but with it comes the feeling that his mind expands and he suddenly understands the entirety of his own life a whole lot better. He shuts down his PS6 with the required hand movements and jumps up from the couch. “Gotta go!” he announces.

Danno and Uncle Steve, who were happily talking over each other by the kitchen entrance, both stop mid-sentence to turn as one and stare at him. “Where?” Uncle Steve asks.

“Talk to Grace,” Charlie says, already halfway out the door.

“Why?” Danno yells after him, but Charlie thinks he’s probably believably out of range. He can claim later that he totally didn’t hear the question.

They’re at Uncle Steve’s place – where they go every weekend and some weeknights and where Charlie has his own PlayStation that permanently lives there, wow, how did he never put two and two together? – so Charlie leaves the garden, heads down the dirt road to where the asphalt starts, and slouches really coolly against a lantern post, just in case any girls are watching. He gets his phone from his pocket and tells it to call Grace.

“Hi little one,” Grace says when she accepts the call. “How are things?”

“Good,” he says hastily, and he opens his mouth to ask how she and Will and their super cute new kitten are because he knows that’s polite and he does _care_ (especially about the kitten), but it doesn’t really work. “Is dad gay for Uncle Steve?”

“Charlie,” Grace says, in that flat, unimpressed tone that really only she can hit. God, he misses her.

“Gra-hace,” he volleys back. “Answer the question.”

“It’s a ridiculous question.”

“Ah!” Charlie says smartly. He puts an I-have-a-great-point-to-make finger in the air, even though it’s not like Grace can see him because they’re not on videochat. He has confidence in Grace to be able to pick up on it from the obnoxiousness in his voice alone. “But is it ridiculous because it’s true, or ridiculous because it’s not?”

Grace sighs. “The former, I think.” That’s about when Charlie realizes that he’s not the first to have The Thought, because she’s so unsurprised about all this that _she’s_ probably the original Einstein here. 

Which brings them to the next point. “Do you think Danno knows?”

*

Grace doesn’t know if Danno knows, which means Charlie knows if Grace thinks Danno knows, but doesn’t know if Danno knows. He also doesn’t know if Danno knows that Grace knows or if Danno knows that Charlie knows or if Danno knows that Charlie knows that Grace knows, but that’s less relevant to the current situation.

Know know know. Don’t get distracted. No.

When he heads back inside, Uncle Steve and Danno have split up, which would be tragic if it were a metaphor for something but is probably just normal stuff. Danno is unloading the dishwasher on his own in the kitchen, which is only bad in the same sense as bad-ass, which is to say, good. It’s good.

Sometimes Charlie wonders if other people’s brains work this way, but then he remembers that he has better things to do with his fleeting moments of youth.

“What did Grace say?” Danno asks, when Charlie steps into his field of vision.

Charlie doesn’t have to think about that one for a second. “Hi,” he says, which is not even a lie by any stretch of the imagination. She did say that. It was in fact the very first thing she said.

Danno gets that expression that looks a tiny little bit like a piece of his heart is missing because Grace is not currently within hugging distance. He gets that way when Charlie is anywhere but in the same kitchen with him, too, but he always hides it under a bit of a smile. This time, he covers by taking a knife from a drawer, despite probably only just putting it right there. “Want an orange?”

Charlie hops up on the kitchen counter. Danno looks, but he can’t say anything, because he sits there more than anyone. “Sure.”

“Good,” Danno says. “Get your own.”

Charlie makes a little bit of a “pfft” noise to show he thinks that’s not very funny, but not too much, because he needs Danno in good to neutral spirits for when he changes the subject with great subtlety and skill. He does it like this: “Hey, you’re not homophobic or anything, right?”

“I’m too insulted by the implication to even answer that.” There’s a minor pause in Danno’s orange peeling when he glances up at Charlie. “Why? Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Yes,” Charlie says, just to yank Danno’s chain and watch him put down the orange, giving Charlie his full attention. Charlie stretches the moment out a little, inserting a dramatic pause just for the hell of it (and because, truth be told, it’s a pretty dramatic moment, even if Danno doesn’t have any clue why yet). “I think you should be dating Uncle Steve.”

Danno stares at him for a few seconds, expression unchanged. Then he picks up the orange and starts peeling it again. “Funny. Very funny. I didn’t know we’d raised a comedian.”

“I’m not even a little bit joking.”

Danno gives him a brief Look (category C, I Am Slightly Amused But You Are On Thin Ice Young Man) and then goes back to the orange.

“Okay, so I’m joking a _little_ bit,” Charlie admits. His dad knows him too well. “But it’s just a fraction. A smidgen of a joke, really, and only in the way I’m going about this. I’m very serious about the message. Like a heart attack, which you could have at any moment, because you’re old-”

“I’m not old and I’m not going to have a heart attack.”

“Yeah, but you could!”

Danno peels his orange a little more offendedly. “What is this? Do you want me to have a heart attack? I’ll warn you right now, your inheritance is not that good.”

“No, of course not,” Charlie says. He knows that if he wanted money that desperately, he should probably kill Stan and hope for the best. Danno dying would just leave him with a mountain of hair products he doesn’t really know how to use. “But I’m just saying, at your age you should live your life carefully.”

“I’m fifty-two.”

“And you shouldn’t waste any opportunities.”

Danno peers at him over the orange. For a glorious moment, Charlie thinks he’s finally getting through. “I’m starting to see what you mean,” Danno even says. Great! “I won’t get many more opportunities to tell you you’re grounded.”

Not great! “No, no, not that kind of opportunity! I meant to bare your heart. To tell people you love them.”

This, for the first time since Danno still thought Charlie had something serious about himself he wanted to talk about, gets Danno to actually put down his knife and stop putting slices of orange in his mouth. “Is this still about Steve? You think I don’t tell Steve I love him?”

Charlie waggles his head a bit, unsure. “I know you do, but are you sure you’re doing it right?”

That, in retrospect, might have been just a toe too much over the line. The bits of orange peel that Danno throws at him do successfully chase him from the kitchen, laughing loudly and holding his hands over his head in a futile attempt not to get hit in the face by anything moist and sticky, but Danno will have to clean up the mess he makes, so really, who’s the loser here?

*

There’s only one next logical step: go bother Uncle Steve. Maybe _he_ will listen to reason. He’s definitely always presented himself as the one more inclined to rely on logic in contrast to Danno’s grumpy temper, even if everyone who knows them at all also knows that in reality Steve is something soft and squishy, like a dish sponge.

And Danno was using the dishwasher, completely spongeless! Now _that’s_ a tragic metaphor.

Charlie feels very smart about this, and even smarter when he locates Steve in the garage, where he’s working on his classic car. It’s _ancient_. Like, even older than Danno. “Uncle Steve?”

“Yes, buddy?” The hood is propped open and Uncle Steve is bent over the complicated greasy innards of the engine, his hands all up in there, messing with something Charlie doesn’t understand because Grace is the sibling that likes knowing why cars go vroom. Steve is unsurprised enough by Charlie’s random appearance that he doesn’t even look up from what he’s doing. 

Charlie decides there’s not much of a point to dancing around the whole thing, because it only seemed to annoy Danno in the end. Besides, in all truth he’s not that good at being subtle anyway. Better to go with his strengths: battering ram conversation. “I think you should date Danno.” 

Uncle Steve pauses his ancient car fiddle session. “Oh,” he says, mildly surprised. He doesn’t move from his position bent over the car, but at least he’s paying attention now, watching Charlie. “Why?”

Charlie moves in closer to also stick his head under the hood. “You love each other and you’re both single and it’d just make sense.”

“Make sense, huh?”

“Yes!” Charlie very nearly bonks his head on the hood, that’s how passionate he is. He takes a step back after that near hit, because passion is well and good, but it’s probably more enjoyable if you don’t have a head injury. “Can’t you see that?”

Uncle Steve also finally straightens up, producing a greasy rag from a pocket to smear the black on his hands around a bit. “It’s not as easy as all that, kid.”

“Why not?”

Uncle Steve gives him a sharp eye, of the kind that he picked up from Danno’s parenting techniques over the years. It used to be that he was the most brittle of nuts to crack if Charlie just asked really nicely, but Charlie grew up and Steve grew more wise and perhaps a little more afraid of Danno’s wrath if he let Charlie have ice cream for breakfast. “I’m not sure I should be discussing that with you.”

“Then discuss it with Danno. That’s still easy.”

Another of those things: Steve tends to get a little suspicious these days if Charlie keeps pressing a point. His right eyebrow goes just a little higher than the left. “Where’s this coming from?”

Also easy! “I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Uncle Steve says, and Charlie totally loves that for him, but it’s not really the point.

“Happier.”

Uncle Steve thoughtfully balls up the rag. “I’d be happier if you weren’t trying to push your dad in a direction he might not want to go.”

“How did you know- Yes, okay, I did talk to Danno already.” Charlie feels defeated by that for a second, but no more than that. “What does that mean, a direction he might not want to go? If this is a sexuality thing, it really isn’t a big deal these days. There’s a bunch of gay and bi and ace kids in my class, and two of our teachers are married – the teachers are both women, that’s necessary info to understand my point – and you know I went to prom with Jackie last year, which I guess maybe isn’t like you and Danno because you’re both guys but I’m a guy and Jackie’s non-binary, but it definitely wasn’t very straight of us, even if we did go as friends.”

Steve is doing a fond yet determined little headshake, which is not what Charlie wanted to achieve with that monologue at all. “Danno’s not from your generation, Charlie. His experiences were different.”

But maybe, if he steers Uncle Steve a little bit- “Don’t you think that maybe he thinks the same things about you that you’re thinking about him?”

“And what things would that be?”

“You want to see him naked,” Charlie says, confidently, and then immediately cringes at the thought. Oh God. Ew.

“Okay,” Steve replies, in his this-is-my-final-word voice that always makes Danno call him a malevolent dictator. “I’m not discussing naked Danno with you. Go do your homework or something.”

“Ah, but you’re not denying that it’s true!” Charlie has figured this much out! He was raised by Detectives, after all.

This gets him the second instance in one day of a parental figure flinging the first handy object at him, but he manages to avoid the greasy rag with ease, because it’s only one. He maybe cackles a little as he runs from the garage. Uncle Steve might not realize it yet, but Charlie is definitely winning this war, if not the battle.

*

Danno’s not in the kitchen anymore, so he’s probably upstairs doing laundry or his hair or taking an old people nap (the only three options), which is perfect. He couldn’t have planned being tired better to fit Charlie’s deviously brilliant plan.

Which is to set the table with two plates, two of the fancy wine glasses, a candle from Uncle Steve’s emergency survival kit and the little fake potted cactus from the living room desk. It has three pinkish flowers, so that counts. To top it all off, Charlie gets one of Steve’s mom’s old tablecloths from the hall closet, but it turns out to be pretty dusty when he shakes it out and he also already put all those other things on the table, so he kind of stuffs the tablecloth back in the closet.

And then takes it out again, because he’s just been hit by the unfortunate metaphor he created there. God, those metaphors – bane of his existence.

He still throws it in the laundry hamper in the downstairs bathroom, though. It’s ugly anyway.

Then he makes a phone call and orders the sexiest food he can think of – spaghetti, like in Lady and the Tramp – leaves a hastily scribbled note to tell them where he’s going and to have fun, winky face, and grabs his bike that’s leaning against the outside of the garage because he thankfully never puts it in the garage where it technically belongs. Even though he does keep it at Uncle Steve’s place, permanently, like the PlayStation.

God, how did he never think any of this was strange before? None of his friends kind of live at their single dad’s handsome single best friend’s house for so much of the time that it wouldn’t be weird if their dad randomly did the laundry there.

*

Ten minutes later he’s at Jackie’s house, and just to verify, he asks Jackie if that’s something their dad does. “Well, no,” they say, “but my parents are still married, so maybe that’s the problem.”

That’s true. Jackie’s parents are like ten years younger and very married and clearly a bad case for comparison.

Jackie closes the front door, because all Charlie’s done so far is park his bike, ring the doorbell, be let in and ask whether Jackie’s dad ever does laundry at a handsome single best friend’s house. “Also,” Jackie says, “what?”

Which is a pretty fair question. They pass through the kitchen on their way to the garden, where Jackie’s mom gives them a bowl of cherries and Jackie also takes a little tin cup, and then they settle down in the grass in the tiny shaded backyard and eat cherries and talk. Jackie mostly eats cherries, Charlie mostly talks, because he has a lot to get off his chest today. That’s part of why he came to Jackie’s place: not only do they live closer than mom, but it would also have been very awkward to be telling mom about how he fixed Danno’s love life.

Also, he gets to hang out with Jackie. It’s like killing three birds with one stone, but like, in an animal-friendly way, somehow. Maybe the stone is something yummy and the birds can have a little bird dinner party and decide that their beautiful bird son was totally right and they should all date each other and have a polyamorous bird romance together, even though they’d never considered their relationship that way before. 

Something like that.

“So what do you think?” Charlie asks, when he’s got it all out and he’s hit the point in his story where he rang Jackie’s doorbell, after which Jackie is obviously already informed of events, because they were physically present themselves. “Is it going to work?” Charlie was very sure up until a moment ago, but now that he’s laid it all out like this, he’s feeling some doubt creeping in. Jackie is a good person to ask – they have an uncanny ability to always win at rock paper scissors, so they might be able to predict the future just a little bit.

Jackie spits a cherry pit and there’s a satisfying _ping_ as it lands in the tin cup six feet away. 

“Damn,” Charlie says, genuinely impressed, because all of his so far have landed in the grass somewhere. Also because he’s at Jackie’s place, and Jackie’s parents don’t pretend like they mind swearing, the way Danno and mom still do, even though both of them definitely say fuck when they forget Charlie is in the room and also sixteen years old and not a little kid anymore.

“I think you’re crazy,” Jackie says, leaning back on their hands, basking in their cherry pit spitting glory. They shrug. “But I also thought your dad was already dating Steve, so if he wasn’t, it makes a lot of sense that you lost your mind a little.”

“Right!” Charlie says, because right! He says it around a cherry pit, so he takes a moment to aim for the cup.

He blows an accidental raspberry, which is completely the wrong fruit. The pit lands in his own lap. 

Jackie falls flat down on the grass laughing, so Charlie grabs the little tray of cherries and pelts Jackie with them, which takes a lot less skill and makes Jackie try to roll away and laugh even harder. Like fathers, like son.

*

He stays at Jackie’s place for dinner and doesn’t even get a text or phone call from either Danno or Uncle Steve. He can’t decide if that’s good or bad, but Jackie philosophically says that if Charlie’s plan backfired and they stabbed each other to death with the candle, at least Charlie knows a lot of homicide Detectives.

Oddly, that’s not as reassuring as one might think.

*

When Charlie gets back to Uncle Steve’s, he’s way before curfew and he opens the door very carefully. Who knows what he might find in there. It could be murder. It could be nakedness. It could be two very angry parents. It could be-

Well, it could be Danno and Uncle Steve, cuddling on the couch fully clothed and alive. They’re also watching TV, but Charlie doesn’t really care about that, because it looks like it’s The Hangover and that’s not a very clear sign of whether there’s romance in the air or not.

“Ah, the prodigal son returns,” Danno says, but drily, like he could also just have said hi.

Uncle Steve seems equally in good but mellow spirits. “Did you have fun at Jackie’s?” 

“Sure,” Charlie says. Jackie is his favorite person on earth that he doesn’t feel like he’s related to, but everyone in this room knows that, so they don’t need to go over it. There are far more pressing issues. He creeps into the room a little further and studies Uncle Steve’s arm around Danno’s shoulders. “What kind of cuddles are these?”

Danno and Uncle Steve exchange a look, and in that moment, Charlie just Knows, capital K.

“Good ones,” Danno says, but Charlie already has his phone out and is yelling, “Call Grace!” Uncle Steve seems amused by this and Danno pretends to be disapproving, but he pretty much fails, if for no other reason than that he could never convincingly emote that he doesn’t want to hear Grace’s voice. He’d need Meryl Streep levels of acting chops for that, and he just doesn’t have the twenty-five Academy Award nominations to back that up.

“Twice in one day?” Grace asks, when the line connects. They’re using video this time, so Charlie can see her raise her right eyebrow just a little higher than the left, in that same way Uncle Steve does. “What did you-”

“I did it!” Charlie announces. He can’t wait. “I figured it out! Danno is definitely a little gay for Uncle Steve, and vice versa, and they’re cuddling on the couch right now.”

“Oh Charles,” Grace says. “They’ve always done that. They did that even when Uncle Steve was still dating Catherine.”

“True,” Danno says, which makes Grace go wide-eyed and briefly put a hand over her eyes because she probably wasn’t aware anyone else could hear them, “but we do have something to tell you, actually.”

Charlie jumps over to the coffee table to push it aside, helped along by Steve’s foot without Steve getting up, so Charlie can stand in front of the couch and kind of bend his knees and lean back until he finds an angle that has everyone’s heads on screen for Grace. It’s not super comfortable, but it’s worth it, probably, depending on what’s about to come.

Hellos are said (hi Monkey, hi Gracie, hi guys!), like this entire family doesn’t communicate through daily sharing of cat videos in the group chat anyway, and then Charlie gets them back on track. “So?”

“Right,” Danno says, and shares a last communicative look with Uncle Steve, and then, then he says- “We’ve been dating for two years-”

Boom! Yes! Holy shit!

And he immediately gets interrupted by Uncle Steve, who sounds a little confused, because apparently Uncle Steve and Danno’s looks are fine for content, but not that great at numbers. “Two? Eight! It’s been eight years.”

Charlie fist pumps while Grace pulls incredulous but excited faces in front of him, and behind him, Danno frowns and says, “Five, tops.”

“Seven.”

“Four.”

Uncle Steve’s mouth falls open from indignation in an o-shape that is emoji-worthy. “You’re going back down!”

“I’m not haggling with you about reality,” Danno insists. He shifts as if he’s going to sit up, but in the end he’s still fully leaning into Uncle Steve’s arm, just a little more threateningly turned Uncle Steve’s way. “Watch it. I’ll make it minus one if I need to.”

Charlie almost gasps out loud. “You’re going to wait another _year_?” He feels miserable at just the thought of having to wait that long for something. Maybe they’re older and therefore more patient, but that wouldn’t do any good for Charlie’s anticipation.

“Let’s just say that it’s been a while,” Steve suggests, passive-aggressive-diplomatically. It’s a version of passive-aggressiveness that doesn’t have to pay its parking tickets.

Danno eyes him like he considers getting out the wheel clamps, but decides against it in the end. “Okay, it’s been a while.” He addresses Charlie and Charlie’s phone. “Either way, nothing’s going to change. All you two need to be aware of is that we’re together, but we haven’t been open about it until now because Steve for some reason thought I wouldn’t want you guys to know-”

Apparently, that’s Uncle Steve’s cue to interrupt again. “Hold on, for some reason? You’ve never liked introducing girlfriends to the kids, and when it was me, I couldn’t be the one telling you that you should anymore. What was I supposed to do except wait?”

“Use your brain,” Danno suggests, like he’s done a thousand times before.

Uncle Steve snorts but keeps his arm precisely where it is around Danno’s shoulders, even in the middle of their argument, like he’s also done ten multiplied by a hundred times before. “What, like you? Who seriously thought _I_ wouldn’t want to tell them?”

“That’s a little silly, Danno,” Grace pitches in through the phone screen, and from the innocent way she says it Charlie knows completely for sure that she does so just to fan the flames and watch the world burn.

“I agree,” Uncle Steve says, and then looks completely surprised when Danno starts calling him a soft-boiled egg.

As fun as watching their bickering can be sometimes, there are also times where Charlie feels like he should probably just leave them to it, and this is one of those. He goes upstairs to his room (now that he thinks about it, he has a _room_ at Uncle Steve’s place – yeah, he should have had The Thought earlier) to text Jackie and further crow victory at Grace over the phone. Eventually she gets Will and their little kitten to join her on the call, and Charlie gets to coo at his sister’s awesome life choices while he can still hear the familiar rhythm of muted but invigorated bickering from downstairs, and there’s no more obvious sign he could think of to say that Danno and Uncle Steve know that they’re in love, so apparently Danno was right: nothing’s going to change.

Charlie was right too, though, even if he was two-eight-five-seven-four years late.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I hope you're having a lovely fresh start, and consider leaving a comment, if you want. ❤
> 
> I’m on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 (and mostly McDanno) sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com).


End file.
